Joseph Ellin's Commentary on "Dealing with a Costly Error"
Author(s):
Joseph Ellin
I
Here we have an engineer who, on his first day on the job,
discovers a waste disposal system which he doubts is up to par.
Should he point this out to someone? Yes; if Carl has concerns
about the system, why shouldn't he express these concerns to
the plant manager? His buddy Rick has a 'don't rock the boat'
attitude, but why assume Rick adequately represents the
position of management? As a new employee, perhaps Carl in a
position to see things or make suggestions which old-timers
wouldn't notice, and which management might be glad to correct.
Rick thinks management doesn't want to spend the money to make
changes in the system, but whether they do or not is not Carl's
decision. His professional responsibility would seem to be to
make recommendations where appropriate. If management doesn't
choose to follow the recommendations, Carl can consider what to
do next; if Rick's view turns out to be correct and management
doesn't even want to hear about the problems, then Carl has
some fundamental reevaluation of his own place in such a
company.
II
Now there is an unacceptable discharge caused in part by
employee negligence. But Carl is also responsible because he
forgot to check one valve. Carl has little choice but to
acknowledge responsibility for failing to check C-2. Anything
else would be evasion, dishonest, and avoidance of
responsibility. However once he accepts responsibility there's
no need to identify the culprit unless he's asked, but if he is
asked, he has no choice but to do so. It's his job to know
who's doing what, and he's the agent of management in
evaluating his subordinates.
Carl is obviously at fault for not remembering the open
valve, but there's a question why Carl wasn't provided with a
checklist of cut-off valves to be referred to in such an
emergency. Simply telling everybody to check the valves doesn't
seem like an adequate safety procedure. Carl is a new employee
so perhaps he can't really be expected to implement better
procedures than are provided.
III
Kevin needs to talk to the WTW people and explain the
situation, which is that caustic waste is moving towards the
waste treatment works. Kevin estimates a range of values for
the quantity of caustic waste likely to reach WTW, and offers
to send however much acid is necessary, according to the
estimation of the WTW people. (They are in a better position to
know their current pH level than he is). His obligation is to
avoid down-stream damage or danger. Evidently he is tempted to
try to avoid the issue entirely on the basis that WTW wouldn't
be able to trace the waste to its source at Emerson. Presumably
this means he would ignore the spill and let the excess waste
reach WTW, where it would do whatever damage such stuff does.
This 'the hell with you' attitude is about as unethical as you
can get. Being less than candid, as also suggested by the
question, is not much better, since it implies doing less than
necessary to fix the problem or limit the damage.
IV
Kevin acts responsibly and notifies the authorities: it's
not clear why there should be disagreement about this from any
differing points of view. His rationale is a self-interested
one, which ought to convince management and stock-holders. The
cost to Emerson is not given ($60,000 +) but it should not seem
excessive, even from a self-interested point of view,
considering the risks involved in trying to cover-up. Kevin
Rourke indicates he's worried about losing his job, which
should reassure Emerson management and stockholders that
company incentives work to encourage appropriate behavior.
Although Kevin does not mention any obligation Emerson might
have to correct its errors before actually damage or harm is
caused, this additional rationale ought to please WTW and local
citizens. As for other industries, they should be pleased that
Kevin has given them a model of responsible crisis
management.
V
Rick's excuses for his mistake are rather pitiful, and he
has to expect discipline. One hopes there are company policies
and procedures regarding employee gross negligence.
Unfortunately it's up to Carl to impose the necessary
discipline. Clearly personal considerations have to be left out
of it; he can't treat one employee more leniently than another
because of a past relationship. If Carl is inclined to favor
Rick, he might try to pass the buck to someone else who's more
impartial, but this attempt at a cop-out probably won't raise
his stock in the company. He's best off steeling himself to the
task. From Rick's point of view, it might actually be fairer if
Carl does excuse himself, since Carl might be overly harsh in
order to overcome the possibility of being too lenient. As for
Rick's personal situation, this might give him a case for easy
treatment based on mercy or personal hardship, so if he wants
to make a plea for mercy, he should have that right, but the
proper place to make it would be not at Carl's level, where
even-handed discipline should be administered, but at a higher
level in the company somewhere. Of course this assumes the
company has proper policies in place for giving a fair hearing
to accused employees, and it should be stressed how important
it is to have such policies, since situations such as the Rick
error are inevitably going to arise. It also might be noted
that it is Rick who has the bad attitude about 'don't rock the
boat.' He attributes this to the company, but there's nothing
in the case to substantiate that, and one point against it: the
fact that Kevin acted responsibly in part due to fear for his
job were he to cover-up and fail. Perhaps Rick's failure at the
switch that day is in part due to his own attitude of
indifference to job performance. And perhaps also he has too
many things on his mind at this point in his life to act as a
responsible employee.
VI
Carl is at fault for forgetting about valve C-2, and should
be disciplined also, though there's not enough information in
the case to know how serious was his failing to remember that
no one was at the "seldom used area." Evidently three hours or
so passed before the open valve was finally noticed; what was
Carl doing during that time? Shouldn't he have remembered about
the "seldom used area" sooner than that? Shouldn't he have
called all the lead operators together to brain-storm the
problem, and if so wouldn't one of them have remembered the
"seldom used area"? On the other hand, Carl is a new employee,
who has evidently not been given any training in how to handle
a situation like this, so there's a lot of mitigation. Kevin
ought to be able to take all these factors into account if he
is to arrive at a just solution regarding Carl.
VII
Carl gets off easy when Kevin decides not to take any action
against him and he should be relieved. In my view Kevin is too
kind; he ought to tell Carl that his performance was less than
sterling and that he's got to do better. Carl in his turn
should complain to Kevin about the lack of training and of
standard procedures for dealing with crises. There's enough
responsibility here so that no one needs to feel that his
performance was superior.
At the same time, Kevin's way of talking to Carl is a bit
odd. His discipline against Carl seems to be to require him to
fire Rick. Perhaps Kevin has read Carl correctly and
understands that he is not about to let this mistake occur
again, and that tightening up his unit is exactly what he
intends to do. If so, Kevin is probably correct in not taking
further action against Carl. At the same time, it may seem
unfair to fire Rick and let Carl off scott free. But there is a
difference: Rick had an ordinary responsibility which was easy
to perform, but which he forgot due to other things on his
mind. Carl on the other hand was faced with an unanticipated
crisis for which he had neither experience nor training. Carl's
failure was not improvising a solution under pressure, whereas
Rick failed to perform a routine task in the course of ordinary
business. So their situations are not at all comparable.
If Carl wants to protect Rick, he better not try it by
lying. Kevin is going to tell him that it's his responsibility
to find out who left the valve open; this can't be too
difficult, and he ought to have known by now anyway. If Carl
thinks friendship requires him to protect Rick, he can try and
defend Rick to Kevin. If Rick has a good case, Kevin may
respond favorably: there's nothing to indicate that Kevin is
especially tough-nosed or insensitive (and in fact given his
responsible action in notifying WTW, there's reason to believe
he is ethically sensitive). Perhaps Kevin shouldn't order Rick
fired without knowing all the facts, which Carl can put before
him. Of course there's a risk that Kevin doesn't want to hear
any excuses from Carl, and won't be pleased at Carl for
defending a negligent employee; but if Carl feels he owes it to
Rick, he will take that risk.
VIII
Rick gets Carl off the hook by resigning. Now he needs a job
and asks Carl for references! His gall is almost beyond belief.
He totally screwed up, cost the company big bucks, nearly
knocked out the wastewater plant, put both Carl's and Kevin's
jobs in jeopardy, and now wants a recommendation. If I were
Carl, I'd agree to write it. First I'd tell Rick what I'd put
in it. I'd think of all the good things I could say about Rick
(which are not insignificant, considering his willingness to
work hard, study and get ahead) but also I'd feel obliged to
mention the circumstances of his departure from Emerson. If I
felt that Rick's action was an isolated incident, I'd say so.
If I were worried about his possible bad attitude and mounting
personal problems, I'd say that. The point would be to provide
enough information so that the potential employer can determine
on his own judgment whether Rick's goof at the valve was an
unfortunate and understandable mistake of a basically
conscientious person who would likely become a valued employee,
or was a sign of irresponsibility. And I'd leave it to Rick to
decide whether that's the kind of letter he wants potential
employers to read.
IX
Carl goofs again by failing to do the above, and lets
himself in for the unpleasant but not unforeseeable consequence
of having to explain himself on the phone. Should he explain to
the new employer what the negative is in Rick's background? He
might then have to excuse his failure to mention it in the
letter, which might prove a bit awkward and might not do Rick
and good by making his mistake seem more serious than Carl
would like.
Why mention it at all? It's usually possible to evade such
questions. It might even be possible to argue that Carl has no
obligation to the unknown potential employer, but he does have
some ties to Rick. It could be also argued that letters or even
personal conversations concerning recommendations are all part
of the 'recommendation game:' They are expected to contain
puffery and little else, and readers discount them accordingly.
A great recommendation means the candidate is no worse than
fair, a mildly positive recommendation means the candidate is
poor, and a recommendation containing any negatives at all
means the candidate is terrible and essentially unhirable. This
may be an unfortunate situation, it could be said, but that's
the way the game is played and Carl as a very junior person is
in no position to change the rules.
The short answer to this is that even if these are the rules
(which is doubtful) by playing according to them Carl is both
reinforcing them and putting his own credibility in danger. Bad
rules should be circumvented where possible, not strengthened
by being followed. And even if Carl has no obligation to the
unknown potential employer, he does have an obligation to
people he might write recommendations for in the future; it is
better for them that he establish a reputation for candor.
Anyway it's not clear that he doesn't have an obligation to the
potential unknown employer; we have obligations to strangers,
and among them is the obligation to tell the truth. Carl's
obligation to Rick, based on ties of family friendship, is to
do his best for him, but not to the extent of concealing
material facts. Therefore Carl ought to tell the truth about
Rick's lapse, but try to convince the employer that Rick really
is a worthy person, as presumably Carl believes. (Of course if
Carl really doesn't think Rick can be trusted with another job,
then he never would have written the letter of recommendation
in the first place).
X
In this scenario, another company, Nurrevo, by odd
coincidence has an accident similar to Emerson's on the very
same day. Since Kevin's responsible action in dispatching
hydrochloric acid to WTW has solved Nurrevo's problem, Nurrevo
may be tempted to pretend that nothing happened at their place.
Despite this natural temptation, Nurrevo should inform Emerson
and offer to share costs, though they might be forgiven if they
feel that in doing so they are going the extra mile. Emerson
costs would have been the same in any case, Nurrevo might
reason, so why should they offer to share them? They probably
have no legal obligation, since their spill has been cleaned
up, although Emerson might want to contest this in court.
Sharing costs would be the decent thing to do, however, since
Nurrevo has benefitted by Emerson's expenditure. What they
actually do might depend on whether there's a cooperative
atmosphere, or whether the two companies are in cut-throat
competition, in which case Nurrevo might be tempted to rejoice
at Emerson's bad luck.
XI
Andrea Smith is Kevin's counterpart at Nurrevo, which means
she's a plant manager. I imagine this is not a terribly exalted
position and does not put her in a very strong position to
challenge higher management, or to search up the ladder for
someone who might take her view of things. She wants to report
her spill to WTW, but her superior, Fred, doesn't want to move
too quickly, hoping that there's been some mistake somewhere.
As it turns out, Fred's faith in Higher Providence is rewarded:
news of Emerson's spill arrives just in time to forestall
Nurrevo's report to WTW. Andrea is not too pleased with Fred's
decision.
Not to confess is a higher management decision which Andrea
seems powerless to alter without excessive risk to herself, and
so she should be guided by the rule of prudence, which says
pick your battles carefully and remember how little ammunition
you have. Not everything with which you disagree needs to be
challenged. The ethical failure here does not involve any risk
to public heath or safety, nor any harm to employees, nor does
it involve theft, fraud tax evasion, stock manipulation etc. It
involves failure to admit responsibility, which is dishonest
but not itself harmful, and failure to share costs with a
competitor, which is not very nice but perhaps not a mortal
sin. So Andrea might want to consider filing the incident away
for future reference in her memory banks.